Most embarrassing range moments?

[jhco50]

I saw this the other night and I am just commenting now. I did the same thing and recently. I have been shooting for over 30 years and I still pulled this stunt. Now I am saving to send my Ruger Vaquero 45lc back to the factory for a new barrel...Yes, I buldged it.
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"Another range story is the squib load I had which remained in the barrel. Like an idiot I proceeded to load another round after it not thinking that the squib might still be in the barrel. The next shot pushed both bullets out the barrel and bulged the barrel. Just 6 days before a big match. $250 later and a quick install of the new bushing and barrel by a gunsmith friend I was able to shoot the match and WIN it!

 

[kd7nqb]

Guns involve fire

So, my buddy had just bought a new S&W model 910 in 9mm. He had only been shooting for about a week so he asked me to go with him. We go and I put him to shame first with a couple of range guns then with his own. Not honestly this was not a big ego boost for me but I turn to start packing up on the other lane and I hear him scream O ****. Turns out he wanted to get a better grouping then I so he pulled the target about 8in from the bench and rapid fired 5rounds. Somewhere in there the muzzle flash caught the paper on fire. He decided to be done.

 

[RustyShackelford]

Full auto tracer rounds with a US Army M-16a1..

A long long time ago while I was in USFK(what some call South Korea, ) an MP in my platoon(who I'll call; BL) loaded his M-16a1 5.56mmNATO with 30 rounds of military tracer. Our platoon SGT told us to fire up these training rounds so BL clicked his M-16 on full auto and aimed at a target about 25yds away. The red tracers hit the paper target and target stand bursting into flames! .

We yelled cease fire and put out the target stand. We all had a good laugh and went back to shooting(not using full mags of tracer rounds, ).

Rusty

 

[kevin davis]

range moments

I have a Saiga .223 and 7.62x39 semiauto rifle. Since I often get up in the dark to go to the range, I took the .223 to shoot but could not fit the magazine in once I got there. I had taken the 7.62 magazines and could not shoot a round. I have since painted a white spot on the 7.62 and ringed the magazines in white so I do not have to look hard early in the morning. Another time I accidentally nudged my .30-06 with a foot and it fell over, scarring the scope badly. I tried it out and it was now shooting 9"to the right. I sent the scope back to Nikon and they fixed it for Free but I had already put a new scope on the rifle.

 

[hqmhqm]

I had been waiting all week to take my eight year old daughter shooting, we drove out to the range with my daughter, and I had forgot the keys to the gate.

 

[SuperiorMarksman_18]

When I was 11 years old, my dad and I went to the Eastern Shore to do some shooting. Well, as we were plinking, I asked him if I could shoot the Mossberg 12 guage pump. Bad idea! I tried firing from the hip and the gun literally shot out of my hands into some mud. My dad was pissed!

 

[XD Fan]

I dropped a Taurus .22 last weekend

 

[Rem700SD]

I had just started getting back into reloading, and had some 300WM reloads at the range. I aimed carefully, pulled the trigger, and CLICK! On one of the rounds I apparently forgot the powder! Having used magnum primers, I drove the 220gr. HPBT a good inch into the barrel. I ruined an expensive cleaning rod getting it out!

Dan

 

[akodo]

the Makarov does NOT have a spring on the firing pin. If you hit the slide release on a charged magazine, you run a serious risk of an inertial fire."

let me get this straight, insert full mag, release slide to chamber a round, and the gun may fire, no trigger pull necessary?

I've fired a friend's makarov, and he never mentioned this to me, I bet he doesn't know.

How likely of an event is this?

 

[jeepmor]

Newbie and my 10mm

So we're camping and I brought my coyote hunting gear since we were in the woods. I mention the my brother in law that I brought two rifles and we should see if we can call some coyotes in the Pine Grove, Oregon area. Well, the girls are all excited that we have firearms and want to give it a try....translation, no coyote hunting this trip.

We find a safe place to shoot, with a great view to boot, up on a ridge and I proceed to walk one of the gals through safe shooting practice. Always point safe direction, finger off the trigger, muzzle down, always loaded mentality, the regular stuff. I then state, this gun is loud, we did not bring a enough earplugs for everyone, I'm going to stand 20 yards back with the other two and watch while we plug our ears. She takes one shot, muzzle climbs about 1foot and twists hard to the right, startling her pretty good.

She then turns right around, finger on the trigger and sweeps us all with the muzzle. We all nearly dive for cover, of which there was none. She ignored every rule we had just discussed not one minute earlier. She only shot 2 more shots and I made sure to stand right behind after that so I could coach her more quickly and keep everyone safe.

Found a good spot to call coyotes, but the adolescent yet fun, driving habits of the other girl in the party, and our shooting, made sure that any dog within 2 miles was well aware of our presence. But hey, her car was a rental, and she treated it as such. However this same person seemed at odds with why we weren't seeing any game animals since we were so far from the highway....duh.

jeepmor

 

[GungHo]

Shot the wrong target during a service rifle match... Would have been a perfect score. I never shot that well before (or since) in my life.



I've also shot a wood post that was holding the target lines with my .44 when some guy the next lane decided to go all out with a SW .500. I was concentrating hard, and he was shooting with a Ruger .22 a short bit before, so I had no idea it was coming. I thumbed the hammer, steadied, and then squee...

*KACHOOOOOOONG*

It didn't help that he was standing a little farther back from the line than he should have, and therefore the muzzlebrake "ports" were almost even with my FACE. Those side boards don't do diddly. It also didn't help that the wood post was rotted and should have been replaced long ago. I killt it dead. I apologized to the range officer. He didn't look like he'd miss it. The RO did ask the guy to step up to the line.

 

[hatch27]

the art of KABOOM

yeah go to the range with a double twelve guage. girls in the range next to me, so i try to show off, do the quick fire from the hip both barrels at once. I heard KABOOM and found my ass setting of the ground barrel pointed to the sky.

 

[Bart Noir]

I didn't bring this up....

the Makarov does NOT have a spring on the firing pin. If you hit the slide release on a charged magazine, you run a serious risk of an inertial fire.

Not sure I understand. How is this any different from the slide going forward each and every time it fires and loads another round into the barrel?

Bart Noir

 

[Ed Ames]

The real issue is that the firing pin has no trigger interlock, spring, or anything else holding the pin away from the primer. It just slides around in it's channel. This isn't so much an issue when you drop the slide as if you dropped the whole gun. However, Makarovs can pass the California drop test successfully (they are approved for sale in California even) which means the "lab" couldn't get one to go off slamming it into a anvil a few times. The designer thought the firing pin was light enough that it couldn't set off a primer no matter how hard you dropped it, which is why there is no spring.

 

[Spinner]

If, however, the firing pin is not entirely free to move in its channel ... maybe a little gunked up with crud .... then when you drop the slide on a live round the firing pin may hit the primer and things can then get very exciting for a short time.

Spinner

 

[Ed Ames]

Yep, that can be a problem. There are quite a few semi-auto .22LRs that suffer the same issue... if the head of the firing pin gets peened (e.g. from dry-firing) it can remain extended and leave you with an open-bolt machine pistol that uses the slide release as the trigger.

Of course, that has nothing to do with the presence of a return spring on the firing pin... if the pin is jammed out (or something else is jammed into the firing pin hole and extends far enough to hit the primer) you'll have a problem even if there is a return spring, trigger interlock, etc....

 

[The Deer Hunter]

I left a paper towel in my shotgun barrel because i dont like the solvent running down my barrel after i clean it. And i forgot about it. First shot there was a big cloud of white stuff. We all had a good laugh and continued on.

 

[Flopsy]

First time I fired my 12 gauge, in an indoor range, I forgot to put on the earmuffs before I fired. Afterwards I actually asked out loud, "Geeze, what is that ringing sound??" For a solid 10 seconds I thought I set off some alarm, before I realized that it was actually the loudest ringing in my ears I had ever heard.

 

[Aries-]

done the forgetting ammo, clips, even guns. royal pain lol.

this one is about a cadet at the local military base (base bordon in ontario)
me and my dad went there to shoot (they had an open day) my dad packed his flintlock Hawken rifle. of course all the cadets wanted to try it.
he loads it up and lets them each have a go at it (while i help them shooting the AR15 he has) i look over at one as he is about to fire (my dad was talking to the RO at the time) i open my mouth to tell the kid to "STOP!" its to late. he lets it off sets the rifle down and turns around with no eyebrows and FFFF stuck in his forhead. its a right handed rifle he shot left handed. his friends got a good laugh lol.
my dad put the flintlock away after that.

 

[Texas9]

Rrrrr....

Good one, Aries! I can see that poor guy sans brows.

Mine was pretty recent. Haven't shot my 92 in awhile. Me and the wife take a day to go to the range, since she hasn't shot it in ages. All's going well, but I just can't figure out why the h*** I'm not getting slidelock on an empty magazine! I've got three different boxes of ammo, so I try five rounds from each, and there's no consistency there at all.

Long story short (and a huge friggin question mark as to why SHE's getting slidelock every time), I get down to the last few rounds of the day when I realize: I shifted my grip from the usual because it seemed more comfortable. Apparently, that little lever on the left, just above where my right thumb NORMALLY rests, is NOT a comfort post. It's a slide release:banghead: :banghead: :banghead:

 

[ZeSpectre]

Sigh, least to worst...

-Arrive at range, can't find the key for the lock on my ammo box.
-Left red-dot sight on after checking at home. Nobody else at range has same model/batteries.
-Perfect run, right in the zone, somehow I hit the mag release right in the middle of it and drop the mag. To add insult to injury the mag just sproings apart throwing bits and ammo all over.
-Trying to be helpful/safe I see a guy on the range with no ear protection. I walk over and say something and he ignores me. Makes me a little mad so I tap him on the shoulder and yell that he needs to get his "ears" on. Well as it turns out the guy is actually completely deaf :banghead: .

 

[K3]

Not at the range, but I had a nice (for West Texas) 8 point in my sights at 125 yards. Spent half an hour getting into position to shoot.

Click.

Buck leaves out. My brother laughs his arse off.

Works better when a round is chambered.

 

[RyanM]

Think I'll bump this one because something happened today. The local range has a firing line that you have to walk maybe 20 feet to get around to change targets, etc. I usually just duck under it. Today, I ducked under, and the seat of my pants ripped. Spectacularly. About a foot long tear. Fortunately, it was just me and my dad shooting. I ended up staying, with my jacket tied around my waist to hide my butt. If anyone else had been there, it probably would have been pretty embarassing.

 

[peacemaker45]

Mine:

At a cowboy shoot: Before the main match, just got done running hot on the speed rifle side match with my '66. Decided to go back around with a borrowed marlin, one that a buddy had been talking up all day. Loaded up w/ ten rounds, double checked the safety. was called to the line. Placed rifle on table, dried hands on pants, picked up the rifle, port arms, ready, beep: clickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclick. I'd knocked the safety back on when I set it on the table. Dumped ten live ones on the deck.

~~~Mat

 

[Big Calhoun]

- Brass inbetween the face and eye glasses. Was a frequent noob occurence when I first started shooting. Now I wear baseball caps to prevent.

- All time favorite: Watched a new female shooter put a couple in the cieling. Her boyfriend/husband/babies daddy/whatever was showing her how to shoot. I'm assuming it was a .45 by the look of the gun and the report upon firing. Anyway, he explains a few things and she nervously lets off a round. I surmise that the recoil was too much and she didn't have a proper grip. As the gun recoiled, her hands pushed upwards, as she delivered 3 more shots to the cieling. Range is cold, everyone stops, I'm shaking my head, the lady is crying, and her friend is getting barked out by the RO. Taught me an important lesson: WHen teaching new shooters, only load one round at a time.

- Ear protection off when it shouldn't have been. Call it a quick lapse in memory, but I left the handgun bays, removed my ear mufs, and exited through the rifle/shotgun bays. Half way through there, BOOOM!!!!! and some ringing for the next 45 minutes. Now I don't remove ears and eye until I'm at the counter ringing out.

- Checking out the retail section of a store, when a 'crew' walks in. They're perusing the new handguns and rifles. I ignore a couple of "yeah, I'm getting this gat" and "yeah, we'll use this on dog". The workers seem to get a little sketchy and start asking if they can help them, to which they say no but become louder and more boisterous. At this time, one of the owners comes out and talks to the lead 'dog'. 10 minute conversation, the lead gets the crew together, and then they leave. So I was BSing with one of the counter jockeys and asked what happened. APparently he gave them a choice of leaving the store and coming back when they would be more respectful, or staying in the store and being accompanied by the police which was in that night for finger-printing for CCWs. I like my range...%99.99999999 thug free.